236 Return to the Plateau . 
exists; and no dread of cutting off a communica¬ 
tion profitable to both importer and exporter pre¬ 
vents the greedy barbarian plundering the stranger. 
Captain Speke and I were fortunate in being the 
first whites who seriously attempted the Lake 
Region; our only obstacles were the European 
merchants at Zanzibar ; the murder of M. Maizan, 
although a bad example to the people, had been 
so punished as to render an immediate repetition 
of the outrage improbable. I say immediate, for, 
shortly after our return, the unfortunate Herr 
Roscher was killed at the Hisonguni village, near 
the Rufuma River, without apparent reason. 1 
But M. du Chaillu had a very different task, and 
as far as he went he did it well. His second ex¬ 
pedition, in which an accidental death raised the 
country against him, was fortunately undertaken by 
a man in the prime of youth and strength ; other¬ 
wise he must have succumbed to a nine hours’ run, 
wounded withal. In East Africa when one of 
Lieutenant Cameron’s “ pagazis ” happened to kill 
a native, the white man was mulcted only in 
half his cloth. 
On the other hand, I see no reason why these 
untrodden lines should be pronounced impossible, 
as a writer in the “ Pall Mall ” has lately done, 
deterring the explorer from work which every day 
1 “ Zanzibar City, Island, and Coast,” vol. ii. chap. ii. 
